


Running Out Of Time

by Charlie9646



Series: Life As We Know It [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cancer, Character Death, Death from Old Age, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, Mental Illness, Mourning, Old Age, PTSD, Severus dies due to cancer, This is really sad, Wedding, Widow, death of a husband, loving someone just that much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-08 16:28:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Severus Snape is running out of time, with each tick of the clock that passes he’s closer to the end.  For most of his life, before he got help, before she came into his life, he wanted to die, and yet now he would sell his very soul for another hour with his family.Everyone dies, not everyone lives.





	Running Out Of Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to all those who I have loved and lost along the way. Those who understood the meaning of live like your dying.
> 
> (And thank you Mal for the artwork, and the idea for their Patronuses, they could of been something quite more silly without your suggestion).

* * *

Death was something that Severus Snape had experienced far too much of in his life. He had killed people who deserved it, those who wished he could take back, those which he was doing the kindest thing he could for the person in the moment.

Most of the people he went to school with light and dark were dead. His first friend was dead. He fought in two wars, he was a spy, he grew up so poor most nights he went hungry. He had never feared death. How could someone fear death when it hung over your very head like an ax waiting to chop off your head? 

A lifetime ago he told a boy “it may have escaped your notice, but life isn’t fair”.

Life was not fair. If life was fair it would be Remus Lupin dying of cancer, and Severus Snape would be in the ground rotting. Death was a cynical mistress. She took those who were at their happiest, those who were at their worst, and those who just were existing. 

As he listened to the laughter of his grandchildren in the other room, he thought to himself that he was dying when he was happy, and maybe that made him one of the lucky or unlucky ones, depending on how you looked at it. Death refused to take him when he wanted her to, as he laid there dying on the floor of the shack, and now when he would beg her not to she was coming for him. Not tonight or tomorrow maybe not even next week, but he was running out off time with the mistress of death waiting to take him home.

***************

Severus Snape got the news that would change his life forever at the ripe old age of seventy-two. For a wizard he was in his old age, for a muggle he was quite old or at least that’s how his parents would have viewed being seventy-two, maybe it was just how poor they were that people did not live all that long, or maybe it was the people who surrounded them did not live that long either. 

His mother died when he was twenty-one she was only thirty-nine years old. His bastard of father was forty-three only a year after his mother. In the wizarding world that was middle-aged. People were shocked to hear, the few who dared to pester him about his parents that is, that they had died so young. All he said at the time being a rather angry young man was ”he was a muggle and she pretended to be one, what did you expect?”

Severus regularly wished he could go back and time and punch his younger self. He was a rather nasty git back then, but who wasn't at twenty-two? Or that's at least what Hermione said when he muttered on about the time period long before she ever stepped into Hogwarts.

When he pointed out that she at seventeen and eighteen saved the wizarding world what was his excuse? 

Her answer was the past, was just the past. 

The only time he mentioned to her she was mature enough at twenty-four to raise children with him, she knocked him upside the head lightly and rolled her eyes. Hermione Jean was not one to be trifled with no matter how old she was.

He was sitting a room of bright white walls, sharp bright muggle lighting, in a hard plastic chair in St Mungos, the day the doctor, who he may have gone to school with, he only was a few years younger than himself. 

”Mr. Snape”, said the healer plainly ”it doesn't look good. Your test results, you have stomach cancer. Stage four. We can treat the symptoms or we can try and treat it. The treatment though can be worst than the disease itself...”

He cuts the healer off, not caring what the man thinks, ”how much time do I have if we just make me comfortable?” 

The doctor stares at him with blue eyes that remind him of Dumbledore and what seems like a lifetime ago ”a year, eighteen months at most”. 

He had been the person who had given Albus Dumbledore his own death sentence, it seemed karma that he would have one of his own. Unlike Dumbledore though, he wanted to live every single day he had. He might change his mind if it got bad, he may change his mind if it started to affect his mind, but at this moment he just wanted to meet his wife for lunch, where they would talk about what he had just learned, and maybe just maybe he would gain the courage to tell his children tonight or tomorrow. 

The doctor wrote out what potions he would have to take, handed him pamphlets he go through with Hermione, and healers he needed to make appointments with.

He asked after he shoved them in his coat, ”I thought we aren't treating it, why do I need to see other healers?”

The doctor explained ”this one will treat your pain, this one will treat the symptoms you will experience beyond that, this one will help you and your family process it all.”

He stared at the one name, he knew her, he had taught her, Luna Lovegood. Of course, someone like her would become a mind healer. He didn't ask if he could see someone else, Ms. Lovegood had been a quiet, soft-spoken, kind girl whose mother had died when she was just a child. If anyone would understand death and dying it would be her.

*******************

Hermione and Severus had been talking about getting married for a decade, neither were the type to enjoy the attention or the spotlight, the wizarding world simply labeled them strange years ago and had since given up on pressuring them to marry. They would do so when the time was right, when they felt like it or never at all. 

But sitting in the serenity, the quiet that was the nearly empty cafe he knew he was running out of time to make her his wife. Every minute, every second mattered, to him. He couldn't speak the words to her about the news he had gotten, certainly, it was odd that the man who made a living talking to people and interacting with them could not speak simple words to the woman he had spent thirty years with. 

So he used his first talent, his first strength, he grabbed a pen and a notepad he had in his coat. He did not know why he carried it, but thankful now that he did. He wrote the words out in his small, clean, precise script. ”Hermione, the doctor said I have stage four stomach cancer. The treatment is worse than the disease, and will not prolong my life, or if it does not enough to make it worth the suffering it will cause. I have a year to eighteen months to live. We are going to treat the symptoms and do what I believe is a muggle term, palliative care. I am sorry I can not speak these words to, I am sorry that I am telling you this, but I want to spend every day I have left with you, our children, our grandchildren, and our friends. I know I was never one to push the idea of marriage or even seem keen on it, but at this moment I don't want to live without you being my wife. I should speak those words to you, and I will, I am sorry Hermione, if I lived for another hundred years I would want to spend all of them with you.”

He passed the pad of paper over to her. And cried into his hands. He cried not for himself, but for her, for his children and his grandchildren. Dying did not scare Severus Snape, he was scared about how his death would affect those he left behind.

When she finished reading the note, she stood from her chair, with tears in her brown eyes she pressed his head against her chest. She breathed in the smell of his shampoo, clean and like aloe, she petted his long silver hair, and he wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Yes” she said “yes Severus Snape I will marry you, anytime any place, I will marry you. I love you Severus, and I want to spend everyday we have left together.”

Time was not a kind mistress, thought Hermione, no kinder than death, and no more patient than fate. She too felt like she was running out of time, but was not her own life, it was the life with Severus, it was the fact her days waking up next to him in their bed we're numbered, it was his hand in hers, is was the sound of his laughter, seeing him read to their grandchildren, it was him making love to her like they were both still young.

It was everything, it was that she was going lose the love of life to a disease that had no cure. It was everything they both felt in this very moment as they held each other on a Monday afternoon in a brightly lit happy cafe.

The world around them was still the same, no one else knew that the couple at the other table would never be the same again. 

**************** 

Hermione tied back her curls and then undid it just as quickly. Severus loved her hair, even if she wasn't always crazy about it. Ginny, Astoria, and even Luna were helping her dress for her wedding. Harry would be giving her away. She was sad her parents weren't there to see this day, but they only wanted her to be happy, and they understood she never wanted to be with another man besides Severus, but at the time marriage wasn't the right thing for the couple. 

She was wearing her mother’s wedding dress it was old fashioned by today’s standards, but so was she. She was fifty-three, she did not need a modern wedding dress. Nor did she want one. Her mother’s dress was satin and lace with long sleeves. Being that she had stored it with preservation charms it even still smelled slightly of her mother’s perfume, lavender and something else she never could put her finger on. 

Hermione felt that in a way her mother was here when she had put on the dress. Her wild curls of hair were now a strong mixture of silver, brown and grey. Not that she cared. Looks had always mattered little to her. She was not the kind of woman to fret over her hair, or any of her looks. She enjoyed when her soon to be husband called her beautiful, and she still found him handsome. 

She never saw herself as someone worthy of the label pretty or even beautiful, but Severus never been one to think of himself as handsome or good looking, they were two peas in a pod in that matter. The other could see them far clearer than they could see themselves. 

She put on her silver bracelet that been one of Severus’s first gifts to her. ”to remind you that I love you, even when I am not with you”. 

She started to cry at that thought. Ginny wrapped her in her arms and said:” Hermione, today is a happy day, it's a good day, remember that.”

Hermione said through her tears ”he gave me this bracelet to remind me when he was not with me that he loved me. And when he's gone it's going to be so hard. The smell of him, the sound of his laugh, him talking me out of a nightmare, kissing him, you just can't understand what it's like.”

Ginny’s faced pinched ”Hermione, my husband is an Aurror, I know what it's like to fear losing someone, and beyond that the war.”

Hermione mumbled her hands clutched tight together in front of her ” it's not the same Ginny, what might happen, is quite different than what will”. 

Luna spoke ”you don't understand Ginny, don't mention Fred a brother is not a husband, knowing something will happen can drag out the pain more than it just happening, you have to live with death, and so does your family” for once her soft-spoken voice was firmer than usual, not harsh, Hermione doubted Luna could be harsh.

But, Luna understood this because it was her job to help people through this, process of death, and dying. And Severus had an appointment with her next week, alone and then they would start sometimes going together, sometimes he would go alone and then they would slowly bring their children to them. And maybe if they felt they could their grandchildren. 

Someone knocked on the door, Ginny told the person ”to come in”.

It was Harry, he smiled at her and then saw Hermione's tears. He walked over to her and kneeled in front of her. He took her hand and said ”Hermione, I know you want to do this, I know he means everything to you, and you to him. Tears are okay. It's a happy and sad day.”

She nodded, then brushed her tears away. He handed her a tissue, and she used it. Then they stood and walked out of the small dressing room. They used each other for emotional support before for, today was no different for Hermione and Harry. They were like the sibling neither had growing up.

***************

Severus stood at the end of the aisle as Ginny Weasley, then Astoria, then Luna walked down it. Lucius stood on his left, with Draco next to him, and Harry would stand next to him. He leaned onto his cane. Partly for support, partly so he didn’t twist his fingers in his robes like some silly schoolboy. 

He felt like a silly schoolboy, giddy with knowing she would be walking down the aisle. The woman of his dreams, the mother of his children, the woman he spent a lifetime with and wished he could another with. Hermione. 

He saw her and she took his very breath away. Nothing else mattered. Not one damn thing. Time stood still for once at the sight of her. In this moment he was no longer running out of time. She walked slowly to him. Nothing else mattered he could see no one else, but her. 

Her mother’s wedding dress, she was wearing her mother’s dress. Her hair was wild, in her face. He wanted to tangle his hand in it. As she nearly was to him though he saw her tears. And realized then he too was silently crying. Lucius patted his arm and he barely felt it. And then he realized she standing in front of him. Harry placed her hand into his. He latched onto it like he was being tossed a live preserver. 

They said simple quiet vows to each other, barely above a whisper ”I promise you my heart, my love, my life and to be honest for the rest of our days” they both said I do. They slipped small simple rings they had made on each other's fingers. Neither was one was for vanity or silliness. Neither wanted something that others would stare at. They were simple, quiet people who wanted rings to match. 

No comments about in sickness and health, no comments about till death does us part. Death was going to do them part too soon for either of their liking. It was a fact. But it was a heartbreaking fact. Them and to all present. 

He bent down to kiss her, and she tilted hers up. They both were crying tears of sadness, joy, love, and heartbreak. Hearts could feel that much at once, but if you would have told that to Severus thirty years ago he would have laughed people like him did not get to feel things like that. 

And yet here he was with the woman of his dreams as his wife. He lost himself in the taste of lips, his fingers making her hair even more knotted with his fingers. Her fingers brushed the scars on his neck. The same ones that could of taken him from her long before he was hers. 

Time had given them so much, and that was something to be grateful for.

*************

Hermione held her husband’s hair as he vomited into the toilet. He had been dealing with this off and on for months before he found out that, he had, Merlin he could think it, cancer. 

Hermione's cooking use to bring him from the basement lab, with just the smell. Now the smell was enough to make him slightly nauseated. She tried not to force him to eat, and if she did it was like what she had done with their children ”just one bite Sev, that's it you need it to help you feel like yourself”.

Another bout of it hit him like a curse would, out of nowhere. Hermione's small hand-rubbed circles on his narrow back. 

Tonight was different than when they were alone, their children and grandchildren we're visiting. He was trying to keep up appearances for the children. Just as any adult would try to do when someone had not yet stepped a foot into Hogwarts. 

”I think this bout of it is over” sighed Severus as he leaned against the wall of their small bathroom. 

Hermione’s face showed no sign of worry she was experiencing except for her eyes, they couldn’t keep up with the lie the rest of her face was portraying. He reached for her hand, clutching it wanting to comfort her, desperately wanting to remove her worry from her. 

A boy with black long hair, and silver eyes came barreling in. Hermione said,” Mark Severus this is not a football field, stop acting like it is.” Her tone was stern, but mothering. 

He said ”sorry grandma! I was just worried about grandpa.” 

She said softly ”grandpa isn't feeling well at the moment, but being calm and kind should help a little”. 

The little boy sat on the title floor, and hugged his grandfather, and asked “like this?” 

She smiled softly and said “exactly like that Mark. Andy, Maren, and Holly were wanting to play exploding snap why don’t you join them? We will be out there in a few.”

The little boy kissed Severus’s cheek and took off at a jog again. 

Hermione helped Severus up so he could wash out his mouth, and brush his teeth. She said to him “sometimes I miss having children, others days I am happy to have grandchildren which can be sent home at the end of the day.”

Severus laughed ”grandchildren are a reminder we did our jobs and raised good kids, and their punishment for all the hell they raised.”

They walked into the living room hand in hand, Severus’s other brushed against the wall as he walked, where their grandchildren played exploding snap, while their grown children watched smiling, with glasses of wine in their hands. 

Severus sat in his favorite armchair by the fire, Hermione sat on the floor in front of it, her head against his thigh. Maren was Alan and Scorpius’s youngest. Her hair was white blonde, but spiral curls, her eyes were a sharp intelligent black. Andy was James and Rose’s son he was a dead ringer for his grandpa Harry, and Holly had her mother’s curls, but they were a dark soft brown nearly black. Her eyes were brown like Hermione and her mother. Holly looked like Eileen his own mother, whose hair depending on the light ranged from black to brown. 

They ranged in age from nine to five. Holly was the oldest and Maren the youngest. As the fire crackled in the background and Alan started to talk about a potion he was working on. 

Their children already knew, what was wrong with their father, they asked to be able to tell their children when they got home. He didn't want them to tell them, but his grandchildren deserved to know what was happening to their grandfather. 

His and other's in the war protected their children from the death toll that plagued two generations, he could not protect his grandchildren from the lesson his own children learned with the death of the Grangers all those years ago, everyone gets old and dies, but you have to treasure the time you have with them. 

Time was like magic even it had it’s limits.

Magic couldn't fix everything, not broken families, not stop the abuse people suffered, it couldn't make love out of nothing, and it couldn't cure cancer that was in your stomach and liver. 

*************

Severus sat in front of his former student in her softly colored office, along with rich dark woods. It was “soft”, “pleasant”, and “comfortable” as if was supposed to distract you from the very fact you were dying. It made him want to snarl. 

Luna Lovegood sat a cup of tea in a bright white cup in front of him. He wanted to throw it at her pale blue wall. He wanted to hear it shattered, to watch the tea stain those cheery walls, he wanted to scream, he wanted to tear the very world apart or watch it burn. 

He threw a book at the cat, Hermione’s, a grey tabby, this morning because she jumped on the kitchen table as she always did. He thankfully missed. Ivy stared at him with her sharp green eyes as if he lost his very mind.

Severus shouted at the animal “I don’t even like pets! What do you expect?”

The cat stared blankly at him. “Stupid animal” he groaned.

Luna sat down in her leather chair which caused him to snap out of his thoughts. She said to him calmly ”your allowed to be angry Severus it's normal with what you are going through, and what you have lived through”. The look in her blue eyes was just the way Albus’s use to look as if she was beyond typical human feelings as if she knew all there was to know. But, with Albus, it came from age, with Luna it was like she was a seer from a time when humans still believed in Greek and Roman gods. 

He said harshly ”I have wanted to die since I was a child, younger than my oldest grandchild, and now in the very moment I want to live the most of all, I am dying. What do I expect faith is a cruel mistress.”

She took a sip of her own tea and looked into his eyes. Her hair was no longer pale blonde with age it had turned white. She said ”I am going to say something you already know Severus, everyone dies. I could die tomorrow, so could you, so could anyone for that matter. What matters is how we live with that fact.”

He laughs harshly throwing his head back ”you're a horrible mind healer. Aren't you suppose to tell me everything will be alright?”

Luna smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes ”would do that do you any good, Severus, for me to tell you that? You are the type who would laugh my face, snarl at me as you left this room. You're a realist, who sees the world without the magic you wield. Beyond that, your not a stranger to death.”

He says ”yes I have killed, nearly been killed, and killed my very mentor, though some of you call it helping him to the other side. Which is bullshit. Utter bullshit. Albus was not a pet to be put down. He was a person.”

She looks at him far more sharply than he thought she was ever capable of ”I was more thinking of your parents, actually. Death in war, even if it's due to something you did not cause yourself because it has a cause is quite different than say an accident or cancer, which has not an actual cause that we can explain away in terms of magic or muggle. Yes I read your healer’s notes, thank you for signing the release it should help us get to the process of understanding what your feeling easier, than it would be without them.”

He snarled ”you read the notes Ms. Lovegood my mother died in an accident in the factory she worked at, and the man who donated his sperm for my creation died of liver cancer. May I be blunt? The bastard drank himself to death. What does that have to do with processing my own untimely demise for a typical wizard?” 

”Everything, Severus, everything. We have work through how you view death in general and in the process help you process what's happening to you” said Luna.

”Sounds like a bunch of bullshit” he hissed and crossed his arms over his chest. 

”I am not the one to tell you how or what you should feel through this, that is up to you to decide, now how are feeling? We can talk about the here and now if you prefer” she said.

Severus took a sip of his tea and regretted it. He had eaten a small piece of plain toast this morning, he was actually hungry, he wanted to go easy, and maybe attempt to eat something that tasted better for dinner. Maybe if he felt up to it he could take Hermione to her favorite Italian place, and they could pretend nothing was wrong in their life for a night.

Then he could bring her home and they could enjoy a quiet evening together. It had been a few weeks since they had shared a bath, the stress of everything had made them both fall into bed without much beyond I love you's and him holding her as he always did. 

No such case of that now, if he already felt sick after a few sips of tea, the pain like a dragon clawing at his stomach, he would not be able to tolerate such heavy food. Maybe he could take her, and just mostly play with his food and nibble at a breadstick. He desperately wanted to see her happy, to smile, to laugh, to pretend that everything hadn't changed. 

Luna spoke again, snapping him out of his rambling thoughts ”how are you doing Severus, you don't have to answer if you don't want to, just let me know that you're not up to it at the moment.”

Severus coughed and then spoke,” you want the truth, Ms. Lovegood?”

Luna said,” Severus yes I want the truth, lying to each other will do us no good.”

He muttered ”well I feel like utter shit. I have no desire most days to eat, and when I do have the desire to or force myself to I end up with it sitting in my stomach like a rock or vomiting up undigested food. You don't realize how much food matters far beyond just giving you energy until you can't eat it anymore. I am so tired most days. The pain I can handle, the pain is nothing, what's related to food is far worse. And then I feel so weak most days.”

Luna said ”they could place a feeding tube, it could help, you could eat for pleasure when you felt like it, or not at all when you are not up to it. It could help you keep your quality of life. And it would keep you healthy to enjoy the time you do have. With Hermione and the rest of your family.”

He questioned,” I don't want any treatment, I just want to be made comfortable. If it would make me more comfortable I will mention it to Hermione.”

Luna raised one white eyebrow at him ”Severus, a feeding tube would not cure you, it's not going to extend your life beyond the time range you have. The biggest thing would be to bypass your stomach, and you would no longer vomit up most of the nutrition you take in. Either way, this is your body, your choice, and you can talk it over with Hermione, if you want to, but I want to remind you should have the final choice in the matter. And before you ask I don't think spelling it directly into your stomach would help.”

Luna did not press him for the rest of their appointment, she asked him about Hermione, his former job, his children and grandchildren. He talked little of himself, but could go on about his family for hours. 

When the appointment was over his teacup was still half full, but their time was over, beyond that Severus felt he had a lot to think about, and he felt lighter to let someone in who was not close to his situation. Luna was a friend of Hermione’s, but she stayed professional though she seemed actually care what he had to say about his life and what he was going through.

He shoved the information about the tube into his coat pocket and stepped out of her office. Anger was allowed, even appropriate being that he was grieving the life he thought he would have, but he should try and not take it out on those around him. 

Severus stood outside of St Mungos and lit a cigarette he was already dying anyway what harm could they do to him? It had been his main vice since his days at Hogwarts. They stained his long fingers and if he did not keep up with it, his teeth, but Hermione seemed of the opinion that it was his body his choice. Though she had no room to talk, once in a Blue Moon she bummed one off of him. More now than ever with the stress of his illness weighing on her.

***************

Severus sat in his chair by the fire, Hermione was already making dinner when he got home, it was his fault for not leaving a note that he wanted to take her out to dinner. He would do that this Friday, and hope that he could bring her some joy with it. He got up from his chair, walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her head. She stirred the soup, and sighed as she leaned into him.

She said “the soup should be done in a few”.

He said “want to take a bath tonight, together?”

Hermione asked “are you feeling up to it?”

He said “yes, and I miss it more than anything.” He placed palm onto her belly, not moving higher or lower, teasing her by simply touching her.

She moaned, ”I think that's a wonderful idea”.

Thoughts of his health slipping from her mind, she asked him ” you're not even hungry, are you?”

Severus said into her hair, ”no I not, actually all that hungry, love.”

She grabbed her wand put a status charm on the soup and turned off the stove. Hermione walked to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothing in her wake. A sweater here, a sock there, he nearly tripped over her jeans. But the sight of her bent over tub turning the taps was nearly enough to do him in.

Merlin, he missed this. He missed just being a happy normal couple with grown children, and grandchildren. Cancer, death, feeding tubes, potions, time or lack thereof and so on were not on his mind. Just her and the ability to have her in his arms.

*************

They lay in bed curled around each other, it was Christmas morning they had to get ready for the day, they had no children anymore to run into their room jump on their bed and shout ”it’s Christmas, get up!” But, their grandchildren would be visiting, and their children.

Their children and their in laws would spend boxing day together, the Potter family, nor the Malfoy family questioned where their children would be spending this Christmas, it was unspoken this could easily be Severus’s last Christmas. 

The very thought of such a thing had Hermione’s heart in her throat. A few days after talking it over her husband was going to get a feeding tube placed. They sat there together in a muggle library going over all that they could read on a computer. It was a minor surgery the type that they had decided on through his stomach and into his intestines.

He would be uncomfortable, it would take time to adjust, but he wouldn't lose anymore weight. Severus, at the time before he started to show signs that he was sick, was heaviest he had been in his life, not fat by any measure, and in a few short months, he had lost thirty pounds. As it stands now, he was likely to starve to death before the cancer killed him. 

He wasn’t insisting he had to die of cancer. But, the former poor boy from Cokeworth knew what it was like to go hungry, to starve, and he had zero interest of doing that again if he could avoid it. Severus stretched, his joints popping. The daylight was streaming through the curtains and made Hermione’s hair look like silver and gold. 

He changed quickly into slacks and a button-up shirt. He sat on the bed to put on soft wool socks. 

Hermione dressed in a jumper and jeans. She sat next to him, her head on his shoulder and said:”I love you, Happy Christmas”.

He said ,” And I you, Happy Christmas, Hermione.”

An hour or so later their once quiet three-bedroom home was filled with the laughter of four children and four other adults. 

Mark sat down next to Severus’s armchair and said ”grandpa, I have decided what house I want to be in, I want to be a Slytherin.”

His grandfather couldn't help, but smile, he said ”I think you will do quite well in Slytherin Mark, but I think you would also do well in any house. You smart, kind, generous, and maybe a little mischievous, just like your dad was at your age.”

The eight-year-old giggled as Severus gave him a fair stern face. He said to his grandpa ”I don't get in much trouble and it's always Andy's idea!”

In some ways, Severus felt like he was staring at a younger version of himself. Mark’s eyes we're the truly the only difference between them, beyond decades in age difference that is. Well, that was a lie, Mark would never go hungry as a child, his parents had worked so hard to bring him into the world. They loved him, he was never called a freak, he was a happy little boy without a war hanging over his head, and wonderful family to care for him.

Alan was labeled a freak of nature by some of the old guild of the wizarding world, well besides Lucius that is who merely said ”thank Merlin” when he heard the news. The only thing worse than being different in the wizarding world was not having children. 

Mark stopped wiggling in his grandpa’s hug and hugged him back. The little boy mumbled his voice cracking ”I am going to miss you, grandpa” and then he started to cry. Little Mark had voiced what the whole room felt. A child did not have the worry of others' feelings as much as adults did when they stated their own. 

Severus was not going to lie to his grandchild, the way his own grandmother had when he was younger than Mark, the only grandparent he had ever had. Tobias’s mother, who was the exact opposite of her son. He wiped the little boy’s tears from his eyes, and said ”and I am going to miss you, Mark, all of you”, he laid his hand on the boy’s heart, a single tear fell ”but, I will always be in here”.

And with that Severus went to hide in his bedroom. He sat his bed, head in his hands and cried. Cried for his wife who he would not be there for in what was supposed to be the best years of their lives, or so people said. He cried for his children who unlike he did were losing a father who loved them. But most of all he cried for his grandchildren who were just children and didn't deserve to watch their grandfather die.

He believed this was his punishment for wanting to take his own life, most of his life. And he would do anything to take those actions back, but he did not realize he could not control his own mind any more than he could control his body. A mental illness was still an illness. 

Severus was snapped out of his depressing thoughts, by Hermione's arm around his shoulders. She said,” Mark wanted me to say he's sorry he upset you, and I wanted to say you have a right to be angry, upset, or anything else you may be feeling.”

He said into his hands, not bothering to lift his face up, ”he’s a child, and should not be sorry for acting like one. I am the one who simply overreacted.” His walls were back up, his emotions under control and managed, for now at least.

She said,” when you're up to it we can go back out there and hand out presents”. 

They sat there in the room they had shared for nearly thirty years. Severus thought to himself, Albus surely did not feel this horrible when he knew he was dying, but he did not realize Albus knew good would come from his death, for Severus he was merely dying of a natural cause. And as much as people did not like to think about it, Albus had far less to live for, than a father, husband, and grandfather. 

******************

The beeping of the pump started, Hermione groaned half asleep half awake. Severus wanted to chuck it across the room, fling it out the window, blow it up with his wand, but instead, he reached for it, it had simply finished for the day. So he shut off the feeding tube pump, unattached the feed bag, and tried to go back to sleep.

Hermione wrapped her arm around his waist and said “the blasted thing, what was the beeping about?”

He muttered into his pillow “it’s done for the day”. Severus spent sixteen hours tied to the blasted pump a day, sixteen. But, his face was no longer gaunt, his eyes were brighter, his cheeks no longer sunken in, his spine and ribs we're no longer visible. He now did not look as if he were as death’s door. Food was for sheer pleasure and not required to live. He did not feel as tired, and he could enjoy the time he had left. It was worth it in the end, even if the pump drove him bonkers. 

He laid there in the soft green flannel pajamas Hermione had gotten him for Christmas. She kissed his cheek and said in his ear ”goodnight Sev, try to get some sleep now”.

And he did, in his wife’s arms, with their cat at his feet, and the snow falling outside. He was alive, loved and comfortable at this moment. And in the morning he would dress, fire call Draco to see how was doing, and fill and hook up the feed bag to the pump. Sometimes that's all you could do was live one step at a time.

As much as he hated it, the healer who placed the tube said it was what was helping him stay alive at the moment and that is what mattered to him. It was giving him more time, more time with Hermione, and his family.

*************

It was spring now, months had passed, Severus was now seventy-three years old, and he knew he might not see seventy-four. He had adjusted to his liquid meals, to the slight overall weakness he now experienced, the stomach pain was still terrible and the medication only did so much. 

And the ones that did get rid of it fully left him drugged out, and unable to function like himself. For now, he would choose the pain over the inability to talk normally and sleeping eighteen hours a day. He used his cane more often, the black ebony wood one that was a gag gift five years back, from Lucius. The man had joked ”he was getting old so he needed a cane”.

Lucius was angry at himself now for making jokes like that. His friend, for better or worse was his friend. And Severus did not deserve to die so young, not when he had spent so many years so unhappy, so unstable, so lost in his own mind.

They sat on a patio at Malfoy manor, drinking whiskey. Severus knew he would regret it, but he missed this. He missed time with his oldest friend. The war-damaged their friendship, but time allowed those wounds to heal, and Draco was the biggest push of that. Insisting to his father he would not be alive today if Severus hadn't been a spy.

Severus regularly doubted there was any truth to that, but let the man believe whatever he so chose to, in his opinion Draco besides in the room of requirement, Dumbledore’s ”assisted suicide” as Hermione referred to it, and their flight from Hogwarts, Draco was the one who kept himself safe. He was the one who didn't get his hands dirty, he was the one who knew what was right, what would keep himself safe, and what would keep him relatively sane. 

He did not discourage Draco, because the man’s actions did win back over Lucius. The man was forever going to be a prick, he learned to bite his tongue about Hermione and all other muggleborns for fear someone possibly even Astoria, his daughter in law would cut out his tongue to stop such stupidly from coming out of his mouth. Narcissa was fairly the same. 

Hermione’s policy on them as they were nearly family to him, and she would try and tolerate them so long as they did the same with her.

Severus stares out at the garden taking it all in. The silly peacocks, the bright green grass, the hedges, the stream so far out he could barely see it. The smell that was the manor, like pine, rose and grass. He took another sip of whiskey, going to ask Lucius about some book the man had been reading when the nausea hit him. 

He half-ran half stumbled into the manor and vomited up the next to nothing he had eaten. It shouldn't be this bad. One small glass of whiskey shouldn't do this, but it did.

He looked at Narcissa who seemed to appear out of nowhere. He faced was pinched as if she was going to make a nasty comment, but was considering if it was worth it. Instead, she asked in a worried tone ”it’s that bad, isn't it?”

He laughed in a snarky nearly nasty tone ”the worse Cissa, it's death and dying, bad. It's not a walk in your back garden for fun type of experience. You want to be truthful?” 

She nods.

”It’s I want to spend every second I can with those I love, but also sometimes wondering if I can go on bad, Narcissa.”

She helped him stand up, and walk back out to the patio. She vanished the whiskey and muttered to them both ”you two should know better”.

Lucius smiled, he looks at Severus and said:” what caused the stick up her ass?”

Severus declared ”Merlin only knows”, and he laughed. He knew that Narcissa was upset because he decided to be borderline harsh to her, Lucius might not even understand it.

***************

Hermione watched the sunset over the sea, it was June, and it was beautiful. They were here on a small holiday they had spent the day in the small seaside town and were going to go on a small hike tomorrow. It was something they had been doing since their kids were small, every summer. She tucked her feet up and took a sip of her tea. 

Severus had long since gone to bed, tired from their day, and she had to help him change into a pair of sleep pants. She didn't want to admit it, but he was getting weaker. The medication, the tube feeds, and his stubborn nature masked some of it, but she could see the signs.

She could see her husband who use to stay awake for eighteen plus hours when he was working on something, now fell asleep before dinner time, some days. The pain that carved harsh lines into his pale face. Once in a Blue Moon, a soft whine would slip from his pale thin lips. Severus was good at hiding things when he wanted to, but over the years she had become an expert in Severus. 

To be honest, she had to, to make the marriage work. He rarely was ever forthcoming or direct about what he felt. Having been punished by those around him for doing just that for so many years. He had been a spy, a spy who had been tortured by the very man or monster as preferred to think of him as that he was spying on to get information from. 

He once told her, ”Hermione, pain is something I am used to, something that just is to me, I do not enjoy it, but I doubt most people experience it the way I do, as something that just is.”

It was heartbreaking to her to hear such a statement from the man she loved. It spoke to the hell he had been through. 

Thinking of pain it was time for her to wake him, to give him his pain potion, so he was not woken from a dead sleep due to the pain. 

She walked into the cottage, placed her now-empty teacup in the sink, grabbed his potion out of his bag, double-checking to make sure it was the correct one. It was. 

She went into the bedroom they shared, one of his pale feet were sticking out from under the blanket. She rubbed it lightly to wake him, it did what it was supposed to do, and he woke up slowly. She covered the foot with the blanket as he said:” Hermione, what time is it?”

She said softly ”it’s time to take your potion, so you don't wake up in pain like last time when we forgot”.

He blinked his black eyes a few times then rubbed them. He then said ”thank you for remembering sweetheart”. As he reached out for it. 

Instead, she sat on the bed next to him and handed it to him. She tucked his sliver hair behind his ear. And said,” I think I am too tired to go on a hike tomorrow, we could just spend our day around here, Sev.” She knew he would refuse to ever admit he didn't feel up to it, but she knew her husband was a smart man and would take her offer of a day to rest.

He drank down the potion and said:” I think a nice day here sounds better than a hike.” He seemed to relax at that those words, she knew he was not to the type to say I can't, her husband may be a Slytherin, but he was quite good at putting on a brave face. But, being a snake, meant he would take an offer of something easier if you gave him one. 

Severus set the empty potion vial aside, and Hermione changed into her bedclothes. Once finished she got into the bed next to Severus, who was already back sound asleep before his wife had even gotten into bed. 

***************

Severus looked out the window, it was October, the leaves were red and gold, he sighed. He was too tired to get up, but too awake to get back to sleep. He heard his grandchildren laughing in the other room. 

He sat up and reached for his morning potions, uncorking and taking them one by one, then laid back onto his pillows and waited for them to kick in. Once they did he stretched and stood up slowly, all of his joints popped and cracked, loudly in the quiet room. He grabbed his cane and pulled on his dressing gown. They were taking their grandchildren to get pumpkins for Halloween, or that’s what they hoped to do if he felt well enough that is. 

Severus had his cane in his right hand and trailed his left against the wall, he was slower than he had ever been at the moment. No longer did he stalk across a room like he did decades ago when he taught at Hogwarts. This Severus would bring no fear to the children of Hogwarts, though he did not want to. 

He called out for Hermione, he was ashamed of the fact, but now he needed her help to dress, he tired easily, his fingers heavy and weak as he tried to button buttons. He grew dizzy when he bent. So, his wife helped him. Without comment or complaint. He called out to her before he reached the living room, ”Hermione”, his voice no longer like a deep sweet song, but rough with the pain that afflicted his body.

He found her sitting on the floor with their grandchildren. She stood up and helped him into his favorite armchair. She kissed his forehead and said softly ”I will go make your morning tea, keep an eye on the children”.

She made her way into the kitchen, and his grandchildren surrounded his chair. They all said together ”grandpa, tell us a story”. So he did. He told them the story of a little boy meeting a little girl who did not know she was a witch, he told them the story of Lily Evans. Then he told then story of a little boy who found a brown dog and begged his father to let him have it, the story of Alan and Salazar. When he was finished that one he had finished the half a cup of tea, which was all he could drink, and now it was time for Hermione to help him dress. 

Severus sat on the bed as Hermione did so. A pair of dark blue jeans that were soft and worn, a grey button-down shirt, a dark green sweater, she kneeled in front of him and put on wool socks on Severus’s boney cold feet. Then his black boots. She tied them. Then she grabbed his hairbrush and went to work quickly on getting the knots out of his sliver long hair. 

He sighed softly and moaned at the feeling. This was something she had done for years, Hermione did it not because he could not then, but she enjoyed doing so. Because he did not receive typical cancer treatment he still had all of his hair. He was grateful for that, most people hated his hair, the slightly greasy feeling and look it had to it. But, Severus loved it because he could use it as a shield from the world, as he had done since childhood.

When she was done, Hermione kissed Severus on the lips, his tongue quickly invaded her mouth. His hands went to her hair. They shouldn't do stuff like this, they had promised to take their grandchildren they would get pumpkins today, but they both needed to touch each other and hold each other. 

They came up for air, foreheads against each other. They said together softly ”I love you”.

****************

Severus knew the end was near, he could feel it. His breath was harder each one he took, the stronger pain potions were needed for him to be at least a little bit of relief. Hermione held his hand, she spoke softly to him about the life they had together. His children sat in their own chairs in the room. Others had come and gone to visit. His grandchildren were the most heartbreaking, they had cried, he held each of them, and cried along with them. 

Harry Potter had cried when he had visited. Saying that Severus was a good man, a wonderful husband to Hermione, a good father and grandfather. The wizarding world was losing a good man. Lucius said to him ”my old friend, I will miss you more than anything. I love you like a brother, Severus. The brother I never had. I should of done better by you, I don’t deserve you to call me your friend.”

Severus had no words for Lucius he simply patted the man’s arm, and tried to say “Lucius you did what you thought you had to, and most of all you were protecting your family.”

When he had insisted Hermione go out for a hour or two, of all people Ron Weasley visited him. The man looked so different. His red hair grey with age, “I am sorry for how I treated you over the years Severus, and you don’t deserve this”.

Severus said,” Weasley stop it, you did what you felt was best, and so did I, we both are not innocent.”

Narcissa brought him potions to help him remember happy thoughts.

Draco thanked him for saving him all those years ago, both his mind and his soul.

Luna visited him. Talking to him about all he wanted to. They talked about his mother, his father, his children, his grandchildren, Hermione and Albus. She did not ask if he wanted to speak of Lily. But he offered at the end of their conversation. ”Lily Evans was my best friend, my first friend, nothing more. I regret what I had to do with her death. I hope she would be happy for me, I hope she would respect me for the changes I have made in my life, and that when I get wherever I am going I can one day, tell her thank you for all she had done for me all those years ago, and that I love a woman named Hermione. A woman who I think she would like when she joins us in heaven.”

Luna whispered to him softly “I think she will Severus, now get some rest, there is nothing wrong with taking a nap.”

Severus woke up hours later. He dug around for his wand with the hand Hermione was not holding, he had to do this, he had to show her, even if it to his last bit of strength expecto pratonum he whispered so softly he feared it would do nothing. Out of his wand leaped a sliver bull elephant, not the doe she had expected. She, Hermione has changed his very soul. “Please” he whispered to her.

She said the same spell, and out of her wand was a female elephant. The spell created beautiful creatures wrapped their trunks around each other. And then they disappeared into thin air. 

Hermione kissed his forehead and said “you and I Severus are a pair, and I love you more than life itself”. He smells like death to her, death and dying, but she still wants to hold him. To keep him here with her, but she knows she has to let him go. They have spent thirty one years together, raised two children, have four grandchildren, and have spent a beautiful life together. 

He feels so cold, but he has something to say to her. His voice is but a whisper “Hermione I love you more than life itself, you gave me my children, you have loved me for years as I am. You are the most wonderful woman I have ever met. I am proud to call you my wife, my lover and my friend. Please remember me, but live.”

Hermione kisses his forehead and whispers with tears in her eyes “I love you Severus, and it’s okay if it’s time. Don’t hold on to protect me love. I will see you again my love. Harry told me what heaven is like and I know you will be waiting on me”.

Severus went to sleep and he never woke again. 

And Hermione Jean Snape became not unlike her husband had been for the nearly twenty years he was a professor at Hogwarts, half living person half ghost. Her friends pleaded with her to stop, but her answer was simple “the death of a loved one makes you feel as if you are drowning. As if your going mad, while everyone else is fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is heart breaking. It was hard for me to write, this took longer than I expected it would for that exact reason.  
Before anyone says anything I am tube fed, that’s how I know about it. It’s common with someone with stomach cancer, but I have a disease called Gastroparesis and that is why I have am tube fed.  
I should write a follow up of Hermione’s life after. And them meeting again. It may be a little while, though the manip for that is made. I have other fest projects to finish and another plot bunny, and another series. It will be finished. They deserve a true happy ending even if it too will be sad.


End file.
